She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

I moved, and could not feel my
I was so light-almost

limbs :

I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud
And the sails did sigh like sedge;

And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon was at its edge.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:

The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The bodies of The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!

the ship's

crew are

the ship

inspired, and Beneath the lightning and the moon The dead men gave a groan.

moves on;

But not by the souls of

the men, nor

by demons of earth or

middle air,

but by a

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew ;

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do;

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—

We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son

Stood by me, knee to knee:

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said nought to me.

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner !"
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest !
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,

blessed troop But a troop of spirits blest:

of angelic

spirits, sent

For when it dawned-they dropped their arms,

And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,'

And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,

Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid and it was he
That made the ship to go.

down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

The lonesome
spirit from
the south-
pole carries
on the ship
as far as the

line, in obe

dience to the angelic troop, but

still requireth vengeance.

The Polar
Spirit's fel-

low demons,

The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:

But in a minute she 'gan stir,

With a short uneasy motion

Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;

the invisible But ere my living life returned,

inhabitants

of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them

relate, one to

the other,

that penance

I heard, and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? By him who died on cross,

long and hea- With his cruel bow he laid full low

vy for the ancient Mariner bath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

The harmless Albatross.

"The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,

He loved the bird that loved the man

Who shot him with his bow."

The other was a softer voice,

As soft as honey-dew;

Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do."

PART VI.

B

FIRST VOICE.

UT tell me, tell me! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing

What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?

SECOND VOICE.

Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;

His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast-

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.

FIRST VOICE.

But why drives on that ship so fast,

Without or wave or wind?

SECOND VOICE.

The air is cut away before

And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!

Or we shall be belated:

For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated.

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive north

ward faster than human life could endure.

The supernatural motion

is retarded;